The invention relates to the compression of a digital representation of an object.
A digital representation of an object includes a graphical data structure with graphical data defining the object in terms of a definition of respective faces of the object. The faces can in turn be defined in terms of a surface for the face and the edges of the faces on that surface.
Such graphical data structures can be used to define complex objects that comprise very many faces. Especially for a large object, a large volume of data is typically required to define the object.
It is known to provide compression for such graphical data structures. However, if a high degree of compression is desired, then some loss of information may occur. This can result in a degradation of the information. A problem that can occur with complex graphical data is that there are potentially complex interrelationships between in data elements of the data structure, so that a loss of information can propagate through the data structure and lead to further degradation. Also, it can result in preventing the data structure from being stored and retrieved multiple times without significant further degradation of the information.
An embodiment of the present invention seeks to provide for rewritable compression of graphical data structures.